Lately I always seem to have several stitching projects going on at the same time and I have found it helpful to use one basket per project to store my threads, etc. in. I have a friend that makes lovely pine needle baskets and I have mainly been using them. But lately I seem to have more projects going at one time and found that I didn’t have enough baskets for all of them! I found myself going around my house emptying the contents of other baskets so I could use them for my projects. (This of course, led to another issue about where to put all the stuff I was taking out of those baskets!) I guess that tells you how crazy things are at my house!

When I was at a retreat in February, one of my friends was making fabric covered rope baskets for her projects. She also likes to have all her project’s supplies in one spot, and she likes to be able to easily move them from place to place as well as have the option of stacking them. My thoughts kept going back to her baskets as I kept running out of storage for my things.

Over 20 years ago I took a class at my local quilt shop and made a fabric covered rope basket. It’s been sitting in my closet all these years waiting for me to attach the handle. It’s kind of big and funky but I love the colors. I think I planned on using it for my knitting projects. I could still do that, but I decided to use it right now to store my wool socks in. I don’t need the handle attached although I guess I could still do that. (Maybe in another 20 years??) I am also kicking around the idea of deconstructing it and making 2 or maybe 3 more usable size baskets out of it.

This one is 9” tall and around 12” in diameter. I think I was having too much fun sewing it together and didn’t know when to quit!

These are still all my favorite colors!

 

The way the rope was covered in that class 20 years ago was not how I wanted to make a new one. Back then, we wrapped folded fabric around the rope and straight stitched it to the rope which was a nice feature as there were no raw edges visible. Today that seems like a lot of prep work that I really don’t want to do. My friend was just wrapping approximately 1” strips of fabric around the rope and zigzagging the covered rope pieces to each other. Much faster process. I’m all for getting things done faster! These baskets are a great way to use up fabric scraps or fabrics you wondered why you bought them in the first place.

I followed the tutorial from my friend’s website Create Whimsy and tweaked it to my needs.

https://createwhimsy.com/projects/fabric-coil-baskets-and-bowls/

I had a jelly roll of 2 1/2” fabric strips sitting around that I was never going to use for a quilt. I tore them in half and started wrapping my 20 year old leftover rope and zig zagging them together.

I wanted the bottom of the basket to be at least 6” wide and the sides to be around 2” high. I wasn’t sure how much rope I would need to make the size I wanted. (I ended up having enough rope left to make a smaller basket if I want to.)

I was happy with my first basket even though I wasn’t crazy about the fabric used for it to begin with. Those big white blobs are the selvedges. I decided I didn’t like how they appeared, so I started cutting them off as I introduced new strips. I like how the stars on the fabric appear as bits of white. Overall, I’m quite happy with how this turned out! It will be very usable and will definitely not be sitting in my closet for the next 20 years!

I also had some fabric covered rope left over from my 20 year old basket project so I thought I’d see if I could make a basket out of it.

 

It was interesting to see how different the two methods of covering the rope were when zigzagged together. I think I like the newer method of just wrapping the fabric around the rope and not caring about the raw edges or the joins. It’s kind of fiddly but looks just fine to me after stitching. The “prewrapped” rope had lots of puckers to it, the wrap as you go method coiled together with a snugger fit.

Here is the finished second basket. It definitely had a looser feel to it although it is still sturdy enough for a project basket.

Here’s a peak at my little menagerie of baskets, including my two newly made ones.

It was fun to make them, and they sewed up rather quickly. If you try one, I’ll forewarn you that you’ll go through quite a bit of bobbin thread. And they are kind of addicting to make.

I also found two felted bowls in my closet that I had made years ago. (Wonder what else is in that closet that I could put to use today?) They were knitted to begin with, and they were my one and only foray into felting. This one was under consideration for becoming a project basket, but it’s too flimsy. I am now using it for my thread bits. Perfect use for it!

Happy stitching!

Tesi Vaara